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Toronto police again turn victim into suspect: Cole

Needless escalations like the one I witnessed explain how black men like Andrew Loku and Jermaine Carby end up being shot and killed by police

A man is having his bag searched by a Toronto police officer on Spadina Ave. in Chinatown early Tuesday evening. The man called 911 for assistance. (Desmond Cole photo)

By Desmond Cole

Thu., Sept. 29, 2016

Police carding is alive and well — I just witnessed it.

On my way to a Blue Jays game on Tuesday, I saw a young black man standing on the sidewalk in Chinatown, surrounded by Toronto police, his hands held in the air. The man was backed up against a storefront window, wide-eyed and trembling. The fear in this man’s face gripped me and I approached the scene to make sure he was all right.

Toronto Police tell us that carding — the arbitrary stopping and documenting of civilians in Toronto — is over, but I witnessed it yet again this week with my eyes, and through the lens of my cellphone camera. Cops say they care about good community relations, but their treatment of this man, and of me for looking out for him, proves that many officers value intimidation over dialogue. They continue detaining, searching, and documenting innocent people, especially black people, and putting our lives at risk to satisfy their own prejudices.

I couldn’t determine this young man’s name, but we’ll call him Omar. When I arrived at the scene on Spadina Ave. near Dundas St. W., police were clearly running Omar’s name through their databases to determine his identity. As he stood flabbergasted, Omar kept asking police, “Why are you making this about me? I’m the one who called you!”

Police were repeatedly questioning Omar about his middle name, and about his precise address, as if he may have been trying to mislead them. An officer on the scene would later tell me that Omar himself had called 911 to say he’d been stabbed (I heard Omar tell police about being robbed, not stabbed — he produced some cash from a pocket to indicate what he’d lost). But at that moment, Omar was being treated as a suspect, humiliated on a public street after he’d called for help.

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An officer was busying himself by searching through Omar’s bag. I watched, stunned, as the officer then began patting down Omar’s pockets and crotch, and reached his hands into Omar’s pockets, right there on the sidewalk.

The police should never search us, or put their hands on us, unless there is a very clear reason for them to do so. I called out to Omar, telling him he had the right to refuse a search if he was not under arrest. The police immediately turned their attention toward me. One of them repeatedly called me “ignorant,” and told me to go to a library and read about the law. The officer who had been searching Omar, who identified himself as “Peters,” approached me and attempted to grab my camera, which I was using to film him, out of my trembling hand.

I have written before that people who oppose carding should approach its victims and make sure they’re okay, as I did. I know why this makes people scared. They don’t want to be harassed, or have their property seized by police. They don’t want to be arrested. But our collective inaction leaves people like Omar at the police’s mercy.

The cops eventually put Omar in the back of one of several vehicles on the scene — there were at least 10 officers present by this time. Peters, who was clearly upset about my filming and intervention, encouraged me to ask Omar where the cops were taking him. I approached Omar and asked if he was okay. “I’m good,” he replied, and added after being urged by Peters, “they’re taking me home.”

In the aftermath, another officer approached me to explain that his colleagues were only there to help a man who’d called in an emergency. When I repeatedly asked him why they were searching and detaining a person who’d called for help, he said, “through the investigation, we couldn’t figure out who he was.” Who he was? Should we accept that police can’t help a person who calls them without doing a background check first?

This same officer told me his colleagues wanted to ensure Omar was “mentally healthy,” and added that police often receive calls from a nearby location of the Canadian Mental Health Association. I don’t buy this explanation. You don’t assess someone’s mental well-being by conducting a body search. If police actually thought Omar was in mental distress, they should have known that searching and interrogating him would only escalate the situation.

Police spokesperson Victor Kwong responded Wednesday to a request for comment on this incident. Regarding the running of Omar’s name, Kwong said “there was a discrepancy with the name he gave and his true identity.” Kwong says Omar was searched and subjected to questioning because “stabbing calls are dynamic and we cannot take what is said at face value.” He also claimed Omar was initially “unco-operative” with police.

Kwong also said police were authorized to search Omar’s bag and pat him down to “get his true identity and confirm there were no weapons at a weapons call.” He also said my advice to Omar, that he did not need to allow officers to search him, “is the wrong advice. Officers have the right when it’s a weapons call.”

So was this really carding? Weren’t police talking to Omar because they were responding to a call for help? The police want us to believe that it’s normal to treat someone who reports violence against them as a potential suspect, normal to search the body and belongings of alleged victim for weapons, to confirm the alleged victim’s name in their databases. If this is how police normally treat people who report crimes, it’s no wonder they have such poor relations across the city.

Needless escalations like the one I witnessed explain how black men like Andrew Loku and Jermaine Carby end up being shot and killed by police. Just last week, the Special Investigations Unit decided not to charge Toronto officers in two separate incidents, each of which involved a person in mental distress being shot three times. We are too busy watching the carnage caused by American police officers to mind our own. And even when we see these incidents on our own streets, most of us give the police the benefit of the doubt and keep walking.

In a year where gun homicides have spiked, police blame a new provincial regulation on carding for their inability to prevent and solve gun crimes. Yet Toronto’s police board has yet to formally adopt the provincial carding regulation, meaning that police have not yet received any formal direction to alter the practice.

I wish I could say that is why people like Omar continue to be harassed for no reason. The truth is that many of our police don’t know how to do their jobs without turning the people they serve into enemies. They don’t know how to help a black man who calls them without questioning his innocence and humanity.

The police board has until Jan. 1 to incorporate the carding regulation. The test of the board’s proposal is whether or not it will prevent situations like the one I witnessed with Omar. Carding is alive and well, and only concrete reforms that address our police’s prejudices and poor judgment can end it for good.

Desmond Cole is a Toronto-based journalist. His column appears every second Thursday.

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